washington, d.c. for over decades now. one of my local news -- the chicago tribune reports that at the end of march, murders in my city had spiked almost 60%. and as of june, homicide in chicago were up almost 20% over last year. 488 murders to date. ranging from 18 months to 19 years. these are americans also shot down like dogs in the street. as i recall being in the hospital room when my son was pronounced dead, there was a primal scream that came from his sister, his mother. it wasn't a scream of a black woman. it wasn't a scream of a white mother. it wasn't a scream of a latina mother mother or a scream of an asian mother. it was a scream, a primal scream of a mother. a scream that is rarely duplicated anywhere. it is a horrible scream and i can't get that scream out of my consciousens. so i applaud speaker pelosi, leader pelosi, soon to be speaker pelosi and i applaud the democrats who are standing here. we must stop future sandy hooks right now. we cannot allow the schools of america to become